Missing Pacific island riddle 'solved'

A New Zealand researcher appears to have solved the mystery of the vanishing
South Pacific island which shows on Google Earth and world maps but does
not exist.

The British Admiralty chart from 1908 Photo: Auckland Museum

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

1:26PM GMT 03 Dec 2012

The phantom island has been blamed on an error by the crew of a whaling ship from 1876, the Velocity, which originally recorded the land mass, known as Sandy Island, midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia. Though the island has existed on maps for hundreds of years, a group of Australian scientists went searching for it in the Coral Sea last month and could not find it.

Shaun Higgins, a pictorial librarian at Auckland Museum who was intrigued by the mystery, now believes he has solved the case.

He says the ship’s master aboard the Velocity reported a series of “heavy breakers” and some “sandy islets” on an admiralty chart and that the unusual features spotted by the crew were copied over time as an island.

“As far as I can tell, the island was recorded by the whaling ship the Velocity,” Mr Higgins told ABC radio.

“My supposition is that they simply recorded a hazard at the time. They might have recorded a low-lying reef or thought they saw a reef. They could have been in the wrong place. There is all number of possibilities.”

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“But what we do have is a dotted shape on the map that’s been recorded at that time and it appears it’s simply been copied over time.”

Asked whether there may be other “undiscovered” islands, Mr Higgins said: “There certainly could be. It opens up the possibilities."

The missing island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least 2000 and appears on Yahoo Maps as well as Bing Maps. Though the island would fall in French territory, official French maps did not show it.

Google said last month it welcomed feedback on maps and “continuously explore(s) ways to integrate new information from our users and authoritative partners into Google Maps”.